


we don't bleed when we don't fight

by harlequindreaming (armydoctor)



Series: runaway [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, On the Run, allusions to past torture and rape, moderate descriptions of violence, rogue!Bond, rogue!Q
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-27 03:10:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armydoctor/pseuds/harlequindreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"When the lightning strikes," he says at fifteen years old, pointing to the sky, "start counting until you hear thunder. The shorter the time, the closer the storm."</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>At 30, Q brings the lightning strike down on MI6; at 42, Bond rolls in the thunder. And now – now they are the eye of the storm.</p><p>Sequel to another thing coming undone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. apres nous

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [SiriuslyMad](http://siriuslymad.tumblr.com) and the forever amazing [Sarah_Ellie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarah_Ellie/pseuds/Sarah_Ellie). Please note the tags. None of this is for my profit, only original insert characters are my own.

**  
**

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

 

Q is fifteen and still has a name, a life that he owes only to himself. Tasha clings to his hand as they dart up stairs; the building is abandoned, and the elevator therefore out of order. It's late, but if they're quick – if they just take the peek he's promised himself, just a peek – Andrew won't miss them. Just a peek, just to show Tasha what it's like.

Q's always loved thunderstorms.

They huddle under the meager awning of the rooftop door. Tasha wears his jacket, big on her, but the leather's warm (a little gift for being such a good boy, such a clever boy). The clouds darken as Q's sister's eyes grow wide, and when the crackles of electricity come, she presses in close.

"I'm scared," she says plaintively, and Q rests a hand on her shoulder.

"When the lightning strikes," he says at fifteen years old, pointing to the sky, "start counting until you hear thunder. The shorter the time, the closer the storm."

Jagged, white streaks snap across the clouds. Obediently, Tasha starts counting: "one, tw-" The thunder crashes around them; the wind howls. Q's hasn't felt this alive in a while.

"Close," Tasha whispers reverently, and Q nods.

"Very close," he confirms, and takes her back inside. Their peek is done; he's got work to do.

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

Now Q is on the cusp of 30 and standing on the balcony of their hotel room. It's a risk, it's always a risk to be out in the open where cameras and people can see, but he wants to watch the storm come in. Manila's nice that way; if he looks out across the bay and the weather's right, he can watch for rain. Sometimes he predicts it; he's right more often than their ridiculous weather team, too.

Manila's also nice because there's no MI6 outpost. The country isn't British interest, more American; they've never sent an op here. He can monitor safely, for a time, send out little blips to keep MI6 on their toes. They're not quite done, he and Bond, no.

Their storm has some power yet.

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

Bond wonders, for the first time, just what Q had been before MI6 on the same day he first sees Q wield a gun. He's never seen Q shoot, not even for R&D weapons testing was done by any willing field agent, and there was always at least one who wanted to pump rounds into cardboard people. But now they're hotfooting it through a New York winter with CIA on their tail, and Bond's already squared away any debt over Felix Leiter with their one day head start. Their temporary safehouse has been ambushed; the laptop bag bangs against Q's hip as they run.

The footsteps behind them are worryingly loud and numerous.

"Walther," Q demands breathlessly, as they round another corner (and Q is keeping pace, sometimes even outstripping Bond, even if Bond's the Double-O and Q had virtually _lived_ in his branch back when they were still MI6).

"Is this really the time," Bond responds dryly, as he checks behind them again. Closer now; catching up. _Hello_.

"You dropped the Caspen in the Thames," Q reminds him, and despite being on the run (literally and figuratively), Bond swears he can still hear the sulk in the man's voice.

"Here," he huffs, amused, and reaches into his jacket pocket for the gun he's kept more out of sentiment than anything else. MI6 can't track it if it isn't used, which is why he doesn't use it. He trusts Q, though; he's always trusted Q. Spotty complexion and all.

"Thank you," Q quips, and promptly whirls around frighteningly quick, leveling the Walther. Despite the fact that the gun's only supposed to respond to Bond's palm, and without breaking his backwards sprint, Q fires.

Once. Twice. Five times, in quick succession.

Every shot drops a man to the ground.

(One shot every three seconds. One blink every shot.)

"Catch," Q says carelessly, tossing the gun to Bond as he turns back around, runs properly again. The former Double-O is still trying to process what he's seen; he catches the gun on autopilot. Wisely seeing that now is not the time for questions, he holds up the Walther.

"Do I have your permission to lose this, or will you get mad at me again?"

Q shoots Bond a disparaging look over his shoulder.

"Just chuck the damn thing at someone's head. Aren't you good at improvising?"

 

 

Four states and three days (259,200 blinks) later, Bond steps out of the shower and takes a breath.

"You're quite a shot."

Q doesn't look up from the laptop, not even when he reaches for his mug of tea (indulgences are indulgences). He takes a sip, warms his hands around the cup, smiles his own knife smile – except his is a scalpel, thin and precise.

"Did you think I couldn't aim because of the glasses?"

Or, in subtext: _no comment._

 

 

They fly to Rio the next day, under new names (again) with new passports (again). Q's stubble and contact lenses help in making him harder to recognize, and Bond is sporting brown hair. They have to time it very carefully, the travelling; too often and they'll be more easily spotted in systems, snapshots, but too infrequently and people will catch up.

MI6 isn't the only enemy they have, after all.

Q slips into his self-induced almost-coma as the plane takes off, and Bond looks at him and thinks, _if we stay until February, I'll take you to Carnaval. I'll dance you until dawn._

They won't, of course. But it's the little things, like hope.

 

 

There are times when Bond privately finds Q utterly terrifying. For example; from Rio, Q remotely crashes all the MI6 R&D labs, despite their best efforts to bring their firewalls and security up to scratch to keep him out. Q watches the video feed, vindictive and self-satisfied, as the lights short out and systems fail to the tune of people screaming. The emergency power kicks in, but it won't do more than illuminate until things have been put back into order.

Q could stop that from happening. He could stop many things, really, and start others as well. Sometimes, at three in the morning when the laptop screen is the only light shining on the former quartermaster's face, Bond thinks Q could bring the world to devastation single-handedly. All before his first sip of Earl Grey.

Sometimes Bond likens Q to the vengeful angels his mother had tried to teach him about, so very long ago, bringing wrath down upon a quaking human populace.

It's absurd, but Q's got that halo of dark curls around his head, so maybe it's not too far off.

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

From Rio they move to Phoenix. Q hates it; the air is dry and blistering, and he's always squinting under too much sun. But they've got a damn good weapons expo with enough attendees that they can relax a little, get lost in the crowd. Even Q has to admit it isn't half bad as Bond stumbles upon a stall selling rifles with .223 bullets and thermo-optic scopes. With a little time to himself, he can make them better than anything on the market.

He always did like to tinker.

Five hours and some thousands of (stolen) dollars later, he and Bond have weapons enough for a small corps. They retreat to the abandoned farm they've taken over, and after helping Q set up shop, Bond leaves him to it. It's their twisted little picture of domestic: Bond does pushups and crunches off to the side while Q disassembles guns in the middle of the barn floor. When Bond goes to run patrol, Q checks on MI6.

He tells himself it's only to make sure their trackers aren't coming anywhere near, that anyone who might be sent after them is far off the mark; if his search lingers on Alec Trevelyan (006 is in Tokyo) and Eve Moneypenny (in her flat in Kensington) and Matt Bellamy (still at HQ), it's only because they're the biggest threats.

Bellamy's coding deals with something dangerously close to Q's back door, so he executes a tactical retreat.

There's a letter on the MI6 badge clipped to Bellamy's hip. It makes Q think of the number seventeen.

 

 

"I thought you were trying to optimize the sights on the Tac50?"

The corner of Q's mouth twitches up, barely, as Bond leans against the doorframe. His glasses glint with the reflections of whatever's on-screen.

"How are they?" Bond's voice is casual, careful; never any names, only _they_ and _it_ and _over there._

Q pauses, taps something out, then exits the program. "Bellamy's quartermaster now."

"Is he." Bond's lips quirk up in a wry smile. "So what do I call you now? I've only ever known you as Q."

Q almost grins as he powers down the laptop. Almost, because he's known this life before, and he knows the rules. _I am a name, I am a job, I am a person,_ none of that matters. What matters is _I am safe._

For now, he and Bond are safe.

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

Q is sixteen and finally, _finally,_ Andrew lets him get his hands on a computer. It isn't that he doesn't like being out there, _working the field_ as the other boys call it, it's just that he's always been at his best with his fingers tapping keys instead of turning them. Their latest hacker died out on a job, and now Q's taken over. He gets into the CCTV feeds, monitors police lines, directs the other boys through streets until they reach their destinations.

When he looks back, more than a decade later, he has to laugh at how well his former life had primed him for work at MI6.

For now, though, he is sixteen, and all Q cares about is the thrill of a hack, of a job finished, of the speed of his coding and his analyses needing to match the speed of a car hurtling through the streets of London. All Q cares about is that Natasha's got somewhere to sleep, something to eat, some way to keep living.

All Q cares about is that he and Natasha are safe.

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

Phoenix is succeeded by California, and while Bond is appreciative of the United States, egotistic bumblers though he finds its people, he can't help but wonder why Q is keeping them here. There had been New York, then Phoenix after Rio, and he's caught Q looking at flights to Florida. It's a big country, but it's still essentially the same place, and there are places where they can fly further under radar.

But still he follows, lets Q command him as if on a mission, just that instead of Q being the voice in his ear they work side by side. He ducks and runs and shoots when told (more often than not, at least), except his license to kill is now all his own. He has no higher power to answer to, not anymore.

It's been five months now, spent undercover, gone to ground.

6,480,000 blinks.

 

 

California is also the place where Bond finally decides to slither out of bed after Q, when the former quartermaster stumbles out in the middle of the night, breathing short ( _ragged, wet breaths_ ) and body shaking. It happens, and Bond's familiar enough with night terrors that he doesn't question, simply lets Q out from the shelter of his arms. But tonight is finally one night too many, because if there is anything Bond cannot stand it is the sight of Q in pain.

He's always been hopelessly protective. It's an unfortunate side effect to loving people who tend to die violent deaths soon after.

Q stands by the window, looking simultaneously otherworldly and fragile in the glow of the neon nightlife. He isn't wearing his glasses, but this time he looks older, somehow, and more tired. He's shaved the beard off, is wearing Bond's shirt.

Q is ( _the seventeenth letter of the alphabet a starfish in bed a lover of Dr. Who still a child in Bond's eyes_ ) still Bond's world.

"Did you know," he tells the window (and Bond by proxy), "there was a time I wanted to be a doctor?" He laughs, disparagingly. "I studied. I had an internship, at one point."

Bond tries to picture Q in the white coat, stethoscope around his neck. It looks ridiculous.

"I wanted to _save_ lives," Q continues, pressing one hand to the glass. It'll leave a mark when he pulls it away. Bond stays quiet and waits for the point of loss. It is inevitable, really; there are always things that are lost in the undertow.

"Her name was Natasha." There's a fondness in Q's tone and that just makes it harder to hear. "She was nine."

Natasha. Bond has known Natashas. Never as young, and somehow never quite as meaningful.

"It's a good thing you can patch up your own gunshot wounds."

 

 

They fuck in the cold light of dawn. Bond kisses Q's shoulder, the right one, following the mess of scar tissue where the fuckups of the CIA had let a bullet touch Q's skin. There are new scars over them, shared scars, because they can both remember how each and every one was acquired. As Bond yanks at Q's hair and Q arches off the bed, they forget for a while. For a few stolen moments they are lovers, and not harbingers of destruction.

Then Q slips off the bed, unabashedly naked, and goes to look for a cigarette, and Bond watches the rising sunlight touch all the places he did, bringing scars and bruises into stark relief. Bond wonders what Q might need of him, an old and weary ex-agent whose sole function for most of his life had been to pull triggers and blow things up. These are things Bond thought he might do for Q, and now he knows Q does not need him to do them.

It is shattering and cathartic, to realize one is obsolete.

The lighter catches; Q lifts the flame to the cigarette's tip. Then a pale stretch of neck is exposed as he blows the smoke at the ceiling. Young skin, pale skin, brilliant and beautiful – the story of Q, written in a language he can understand, in scars and a tattoo that had surprised Bond the first time they'd slept together. Bond has his own weathered skin as well, has his own scars and stories, but his are strewn across continents and files as well as his body.

"My name is Mikhail," Q says out of the blue, and Bond stiffens; there are still words that sometimes come in his sleep ( _I'm just a Tech Services supervisor, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know_ ). He shifts on the bed, leaning back against the headboard, sheets pooling on his lap, and waits.

"That wasn't a lie." Q's laugh is – something Bond can't quite put. It isn't sad and it isn't bitter, but it's empty and it doesn't reach his eyes. He stands in the middle of the room with a mangled smile on his face, casually taking a drag on his cigarette. "It's Mikhail. Mikhail Asprey. They changed my last name for the MI6 records."

"Why keep it?" Had they still been MI6, Bond wouldn't have spoken, but now any secrets kept are no longer mandated by Her Majesty but by their own choices, and Q has chosen to give him this. So Bond asks.

Q chuckles under his breath as he stubs out the cigarette, finds his pants on the floor. "I wanted to keep something with me." The sound of the elastic band snapping against his hips is deafening in the quiet morning. He moves back to the bed, sits on the edge, hands clasped between his knees. "I haven't used it in over a decade, though."

Bond looks at him for a few moments, the sunrise striking the man's body as he watches the world brighten outside with a bitter sort of resignation. "Q," Bond says, quietly and deliberately, and Q looks at him in slight surprise. "Come back to bed." And Q smiles, genuinely smiles, for the first time since leaving MI6, and unfolds himself gratefully. They tangle up, sleep the morning away – or Q does, at least. Bond simply holds Q, one arm curled lazily around him, thumb stroking down a scar on his ribs. Bond thinks about what Q has just given him, and feels the heavy weight of premonition curl in his gut.

This cannot end well for either of them. That is how the world works as Bond knows it, and he hasn't been proven wrong yet.

All storms peter out in the end.

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

The flight to Hong Kong takes hours and hours, but at least it gives Bond time to compartmentalize the information, gives Q time to dream about Natasha and her crooked smile. Bond even laughs at one point, when Q struggles awake and reveals one side of curls flattened against his head. Their hands tangle together under the blankets, and Q allows them a moment of peace.

It's been quiet. In the ocean, the only quiet thing is the deep, where the monsters hide.

They wouldn't be on the run if they weren't hunted, after all.

 

 

In Hong Kong there is a monsoon, and theirs is the only apartment that does not lose electricity completely. As the storm rages outside, Q idly taps at his laptop. Bond watches the rain hammer on the glass, the lightning illuminating the sharp planes of his face.

"When the lightning strikes," Q says, casually, as he wraps up his latest program with a few self-satisfied clicks, "start counting until you hear thunder."

Bond's smile is in the crinkles at the corner of his eyes. Thunder booms in the distance. "The shorter the time, the closer the storm," he answers, to Q's obvious satisfaction. He turns back to the window, watches the deluge come down on the city below. "Mum did teach me."

Q's answering laugh is more discernable, even over the storm. The numbers on his screen are reflected on the lenses of his glasses. The knife smile cuts across his face.

"I think MI6 has counted long enough, don't you?"

 

 

Bond thinks it's a virus. Then again, he amends as they take the train across the capital (Q, for some reason, wants to see Ocean Park), it makes sense it's a virus. He has no idea what it does, only that Q left the laptop behind in the apartment (which they won't be going back to, no) to run the damned thing. Half of him expects to see civilization on the brink of utter destruction when they come across the news next.

"Trainspotter," Q says conversationally, as they whiz along at dizzying speeds.

"Pardon?" Bond asks, frowning at Q. That's not a word he's encountered before.

"Trainspotter." Q has a nostalgic sort of smile lilting his lips, watching Hong Kong blur by. He's not even holding onto anything, unlike Bond; the surprisingly graceful twat is just leaning against one of the slender metal poles, one hand protectively on the strap of his bag and the other tucked in his pocket. Back at MI6, Bond had thought he'd known the ex-quartermaster best; now, he feels like he barely knows Q at all.

Then again, it's a fair assessment. Q had full access to his file, to everything he'd ever done to and for MI6 since he'd first come in. Bond hadn't had the clearance to see any file on Q at all.

"As in spotting trains?" The word – if it's even a real word, because Bond's fairly sure it isn't – doesn't make any sense, not even in this context. Doesn't seem particularly relevant, either.

Q laughs, head tipping back against the metal pole. It's an off hour; there aren't as many people on the train as there could have been, no one suspicious. Q looks startlingly young as he laughs, younger even than he usually does, and much more carefree.

"It's slang." He grins up at Bond, but it's not affectionate – there's an edge to it. It's his own knife smile, the scalpel smile, sharp and dangerous. "Trainspotter – transporter. Black market, of course."

 _Transporter_. Now that is something Bond is familiar with, has encountered before – the delivery boys of the underworld. A third party to carry the illegal goods, so the first and second parties won't have to risk getting caught. Bond still isn't sure how this is relevant, though. He cocks an eyebrow, tips his head questioningly.

Q's answer is to fold his fingers into a make-believe gun, point it at Bond's head. He mock-fires, still grinning.

"You asked why I was such a good shot."

 

 

It _is_ a virus, and Bond gets his first view of just what it can do when they're sitting in the airport lounge, waiting for their flight to board. In London, encryption after encryption folds to Q's bidding; the CCTV cameras short out, the BBC channels turn to static, the traffic system fails. CNN reports on Bank of England's security collapsing, vaults opening and computers blacking out.

Q doesn't even watch the news bit, just sits on the couch and sips his tea, reading a Vonnegut book.

It's beautiful and terrifying, really, and Bond finally fully realizes just how big a risk MI6 had taken in making this young man their quartermaster. Q is a genius, frighteningly brilliant, and for a time he'd used that genius in service to England. The starkest difference between Q and Silva, aside from sanity, had been loyalty – Q had never been betrayed, never been compromised. But 4,700,520 blinks have turned him against Queen and country; MI6 is witnessing the genius they cultivated become their own devastation.

And Q doesn't even bat an eyelash as he does it.

Bond is a wave, Bond is thunder: he has strength, has rage, has a body which he can use and wield to achieve his ends. He is brute force. But what is far more dangerous is the undertow, the lightning, because these are what cause the _real_ damage. A wave you can see rearing up to pull you in but the undertow is sudden as it sucks you down to drowning; thunder only comes because lightning strikes before.

Bond may have been the best agent, but Q had always been MI6's most dangerous asset.

From somewhere above them, an intercom crackles to life and announces first in Mandarin, then Cantonese, and then English, that their flight is ready to board. Q sets down his tea, closes his book, shoulders his bag. He looks for all the world like any other traveler, and the deception is stunning.

"James?" he asks, snapping Bond out of his reverie. Q has his head cocked to the side, one eyebrow arched in query. Bond shakes his head, exhales sharply.

"Sorry," he returns, grinning as he stands. He can still hear the words in his head at nights, the rescue operation that had been more for the self-preservation of MI6 than the retrieval of this beautiful, brilliant man before him.

Q sidles up to Bond and grins back, cheeks lightly flushed in triumph. Bond slips a hand around the man's waist and squeezes his hip. They walk over to their gate while half a world away, London suffers their wrath.

Wave and undertow. Storms _do_ originate from the ocean.

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

 

They land in the Philippines just as the rainy season comes in. The capital is crowded and muggy, and the driving etiquette (or lack thereof) is appalling. Still, their hotel room has a pleasant enough view of Manila Bay, and the chances of MI6 pinging them here are slim. They take the evening to themselves; Bond takes Q to a lavish dinner (ignoring the stares they get, the curious glances), then takes him back up to their hotel room. The door hardly closes behind Q before he finds himself up against the wall with a very handsy ex-agent all over him, and it's wholly delightful. Bond sucks him through one orgasm before fucking him through the next, until all of Q's efforts to be quiet are ruined and he's letting out little hitching gasps and stuttered cries, legs folded over Bond's shoulders. When Bond does come it's with a stubbly cheek pressed against Q's pulse, harsh breaths in the younger man's ear and fingers gripping his hips enough to bruise.

They make no confessions or promises, but they're unnecessary, anyway, and far too unlikely to hold. Instead Bond trains, makes sure his body is always at the ready to protect Q, and Q keeps his mind on high alert, keeps Bond out of danger.

In their world, to die for another person is a much stronger vow.

 

 

Six in the morning finds Q sitting on the balcony, despite the tropical storm. The wind blows the drops, sleeting them, so the rain is nearly opaque. Behind him, barely audible over the deluge, the sliding door opens and Bond steps out, much more sensibly dressed in jeans and a jacket than Q's shirt, boxers and blanket.

"You'll catch a cold," he says, frowning at Q, who cocks an eyebrow.

"I'll manage," he replies, curling up more comfortably on the rattan chair. The horizon is dark gray despite the dawn. "That usually only applies for drizzles, really."

"Wet is still wet." Bond wrinkles his nose as the rain stings his face. He looks back down at Q, who seems perfectly content to let the rain slide over his skin, flatten his hair. Q, who'd clutched at him in bed last night like a man about to drown. Q who'd had a living, a _life,_ back home in England, who'd abandoned it without a second thought because MI6 had cared so little for a man who'd given them so much. Who'd walked away when he'd realized just how expendable they were – Bond more than him.

He tries to imagine M giving Q the order to stop looking, calling the two week mark and shutting the rescue operation down. Likely Q wouldn't have listened, would have kept looking long beyond the reasonable time to hope that Bond might still be alive. _Habit of resurrection,_ he'd once termed it – Bond's innate ability to keep coming back, no matter the odds. Bond had lived in the constant fear of losing Q, of finding his lifeless body; Q had lived in the constant belief that Bond would always find him, come back to him no matter what.

Shaking his head, Bond pulls up the other chair on the little set on their balcony and takes a seat, swiping at the wetness on his face. "Why do you like the rain so much?" he asks, turning to Q, studying the man's face. Q stretches a hand out, catches the rain in one cupped palm.

"Not so much the rain," he answers with a faint smile. Above and around them, lightning crackles and thunder shakes the horizon. His hair is getting weighed down, strands plastered to his forehead. Still, Q closes his eyes and turns his face up toward the torrent, expression beatific, as if the rain were benediction (and there’s the vengeful angel metaphor again).

It's a few moments before Q continues. "It's pathetically poetic, but—" His lips twist into a thin smile as he chuckles under his breath. "It's the lighting. I've always found it peaceful." He looks up again; the rain spots his glasses and blurs his vision. "A reminder of sorts, that – that the sky can crack and break too."

When he looks back toward Bond, Q feels a little heat creep into his cheeks, because Bond is looking at him as if he's said the most perfect thing. There's a softness to his eyes and the barest uptick of his lips and it all makes Q feel as if his heart is too big for his chest. Then Bond's leaning across the small table, pressing his lips to Q's, and cheesiness be damned but they're kissing in the rain. Bond moves, kneels at Q's feet. Q grips Bond's arms as if fearing the man's loss.

 _Aprés moi, le deluge,_ Q idly thinks as he tips his head back, lets Bond lick raindrops off his neck.

_Aprés nous, le deluge._

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

 

Later, when Bond is sleeping: "You could have left me in New York, you know." Teeth worry Q's lip as he watches Bond breathe ( _ragged, wet breaths_ ). "They would have kept me alive to draw you back."

Because Bond always comes back. That is a universal truth in Q's eyes, from the very first day Bond had promised it: he will always, always come back.

 

 

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

_End Chapter One_


	2. white queen check

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Pawn to E4," Q says when Bond returns some hours later, having wasted away his day wandering around the mall aimlessly. He's bought a few things – some shirts better suited to the climate, a few books, a packet of local candy – and these he sets on the living room couch. Q looks up with a welcoming smile. "White Queen open."_
> 
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> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> In which an old friend resurfaces, old hurts are brought back up, and old stories lend weight to new choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is still somewhat largely un-beta'd, so any concrit or Britpicking will be welcome. Took me a while to write this chapter, the ending especially -- it wasn't quite cooperating.
> 
> None of this is for my profit. Again, sequel to another thing coming undone.

 

 

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

Coming across Alec Trevelyan in the Sofitel dining room is quite a shocker, especially since the last Q had checked, 006 had been in Cairo. He's sipping his coffee, reading a copy of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and looking for all the world like another foreign businessman enjoying breakfast before a meeting. Q stops short by the fruit table, face paling even further, but Bond pauses only a few moments before striding over. His gait is weapons-ready: one hand in a fist by his hip, the other hand loose, poised to reach for his gun.

"You're not in Egypt," Bond says bluntly as he drops into the chair opposite his oldest friend. Alec takes his time, reaching the end of the article first before folding up the paper, setting it to the side, taking another sip of coffee.

"And you're not in Hong Kong." Over the specialities menu and the small pot of flowers, their eyes meet in a challenge. In the background, Q has put random bread into the toaster so he has an excuse to hang back and watch.

"I'm not supposed to be anywhere." Bond's eyes narrow further.

"Succinct as always." Alec's lip curls into a grin that Bond doesn't mirror. "I'm not here because of MI6," he adds, but Bond doesn't relax.

"How did you find us?" A waiter comes over but Bond waves him away, eyes flicking to Q, who's now loading his plate with bacon as slowly as he dares. He zeroes back in on Alec, who's examining his dragonfruit with interest.

"Aurum potestas est," he answers offhandedly, slicing off a piece and nibbling it with interest. "You're not the only one with contacts outside those sanctioned by Her Majesty's finest."

Bond's expression only tightens, pinches further, and Alex sets down his fork with a sigh. "Look, last I heard you two were boarding a train in Kowloon, that's it. I wasn't having you _tailed,_ just – if anyone saw..." He trails off, looking outside the expansive windows to the pool view. "I went to ground, hopped a flight here. I’m not an idiot, even if MI6 is. It's not hard to predict where you'll go." Alec purses his lips, flicks his eyes back up to meet Bond's. That's his cards on the table, then, but Bond still isn't satisfied.

"So why come in the first place?" he asks icily, cocking an eyebrow. _Why come after a fugitive_?, because if Alec isn't here for MI6 then he has no business. Bond had cut all ties – _all_ of them – when he'd left England with Q, and that includes Alec.

"He's an interesting character, isn't he?" Alec counters instead, turning his head slightly to the side to catch Q, who's shuffling fruits as if indecisive, in his peripheral vision. "Boothroyd's whiz kid. I wasn't on the team that brought him in – we were just starting out, you and I both – but I was there when they did. You were in Kabul, I think. Or Berlin." A corner of his lips quirks up in a smile as he turns back to Bond, reaching for his coffee.

Bond's eyebrows go up in a look of calculated disinterest. "Get to the point, Alec," he says flatly. Across the room, Q seems to have decided he's dawdled around the buffet long enough and has settled on a table near enough theirs without arousing suspicion. He's poking at his toast and bacon, having commandeered a teapot all to himself. Bond blinks, turns his attention back to Alec, who's watching him carefully. They may have been trained to hide tells from the rest of the world, the Double-Os, but he and Alec can't hide from each other. Not after all they've been through.

"Do you know what the number one danger was for him?" Alec spears another piece of fruit on his fork, holding it up for idle examination. "Boredom. I was between missions then, so they set me to guard the newest recruit to Q-Branch, make sure he didn't try anything funny. M was scared he'd get bored with the work they gave him, that he'd try something – much more exciting for a tech kid out there in the underworld than it is starting out at MI6, you've got to admit. And Christ knows he was bored, at the beginning, with the piddling little projects they gave him." He takes one last swig of coffee, stacks his plates, and stands. Bond watches him, waiting for it; his oldest friend hasn't flown to Manila on a risk just to make small talk about Q.

Alec buttons up his jacket, smoothing down the front. "It's kind of like us and the field – him and his previous life, I mean. It's hard to put that kind of life aside for good. The thrill of it all, the challenge..." He trails off, as if searching for the right word, but Bond knows better, knows his friend better, knows this is for effect – to drive a point home. "You and I, we left the SBS for the same reason. Life on the field – there isn't anything like it. It's why you keep coming back – we all do." He eyes Bond with the ghost of a teasing grin, then sobers. "MI6 might give a challenge, but for a hacker, the underworld, well – there isn't anything like it, either.

"Don't worry," he adds, already turning away, throwing a mocking little salute. "I won't tell MI6 I found you. But after this, James, we're even."

 

 

It's a while before Bond finds it in himself to join Q at his table, bearing a plate of rice, scrambled eggs and cured, sugared pork bits called _tocino._ The ex-quartermaster has already eaten most of his own breakfast, and is idly sipping his tea while engrossed in an article about tuition issues in the national university. He doesn't look up as Bond takes the seat across, simply shifts some of his plates to make space. Bond sets his plate down, leaves to get another. Q drinks more tea.

Elephant in the room, elephant in the room.

"What did Alec want?" Q finally asks, after Bond's come back with a second plate (pancakes and bacon, plus some mangos – delicious fruit, they are, shame they can't be grown in England) and sat himself down. He eyes Bond over the paper, expression polite as can be.

Bond looks at Q, then looks away. He picks up his coffee and takes a gulp. "Nothing much," he answers, as carefully pleasant as Q. "He said he wouldn't out us to MI6, if that's what you're worried about."

"I wouldn't let him, anyway," Q says simply, pouring himself some more Earl Grey. The words jar Bond, who pauses with the cup halfway to his mouth. That Q can say them so offhandedly, with all their underlying implications—

Q steals some of his _tocino_ and munches, watching the people outside, the families and couples and solo travellers, innocuous as anything.

They say nothing for the rest of the meal.

 

 

Bond watches Q sleep on their lavish hotel bed, sheets moving almost imperceptibly with the rise and fall of his chest, and wonders if this is what Alec meant to achieve with his visit. To make him question if Q had considered running before, had always had this rogue streak hidden underneath bland suits and hideous cardigans. If their abduction had not been the catalyst, but simply a tipping point for an already frustrated mind. To make Bond wonder if Q needed him as nothing more than an excuse and a guard, a body to use as he deemed fit.

Bond watches Q sleep, and remembers the mumbling, always counting, clinging to some form of sanity to make it through to rescue. Remembers gunshots, after the CIA had extracted them in New York. Remembers the compulsion, despite injury, to reach Q, make sure he was all right.

Bond knows his own unflinching loyalty to the things he loves, the pedestal upon which he places the objects of his affection. Bond, as it has transpired, does not know Q.

Back during their time of service, knowing each others' weaknesses had been the saving of Bond and Alec. Now – now Alec can target Bond with a deadly precision that can ruin him. Ruin _this._

Waves take their power from winds and currents; the reverse does not quite hold true. Currents move long after the surface stills.

It's a long while before Bond falls asleep.

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

 

Q is halfway to seventeen with adrenaline still thrumming from the latest gig – the interception of high-priority information which had required not only finesse and good timing, but the ruthless defense of their systems against the cyber-attacks coming from their target. Andrew hadn’t given him a _who_ or _what,_ and Q hadn’t bothered looking, just fended off assault after assault, eyes fever-bright as his fingers sped over the keys. _Don’t let them find us,_ Andrew had said, hand caressing Q’s lower back as he watched his protégé work his magic.

As if Q would have let them come close.

It had been touch-and-go, but it’s the near-miss that fuels the thrill for Q, the metallic sheen of victory after seven straight hours of defensive coding. The sounds Andrew makes and the way he looks so utterly _wrecked_ and satisfied as Q works different _magic_ on his knees only heighten the buzz; he’s drenched in sweat and littered with bite marks by the end of it. Andrew magnanimously lets him have the rest of the day off and Q checks on Natasha before leaving to get some coffee; he can’t just sit still at base after something like that. The weather’s as it normally is, but nothing can dampen Q’s mood, not even the random man who drops into the seat across his like it’s his business.

Or well. Nothing until the man talks, that is.

“Toby, isn’t it?” the man asks, casual as can be, and the blood drains from Q’s face before he can school his reaction. The man’s eyes sharpen, and surprisingly strong fingers (calloused, _computers,_ oh _shit_ ) close over Q’s wrist before he can make a break for it.

“I think you’ve time for a chat, don’t you?” the man asks pleasantly, dangerously, and Q – _Toby,_ still Toby back then, the alias from a lifetime ago – swallows and nods.

 

 

It turns out MI6 hadn’t tried as hard as they should have against Toby. Major Boothroyd disabuses him of this notion very quickly, and more than that, of the illusion of their continued safety. The job had primed them all as targets, as liabilities, and the only way for all of them is down.

All of them, except perhaps Toby.

Toby can be an asset, or Toby can be collateral. It’s his choice, Boothroyd says with a shrug. He drops twenty quid on the table with a business card, flicks a mocking salute, and leaves.

Victory suddenly feels very hollow, Q – Toby – muses.

 

 

(Over a decade and Q's hatred for the word _collateral_ and what it really means, what it insinuates when he has to factor in a civilian death toll and call it _collateral damage_ on paper, can only be shunted to the back of his head along with the reality of his hands not being very clean at all.)

 

 

Two days later, right before MI6 strikes, Q and Natasha turn up on Boothroyd’s doorstep a little too late at night. Boothroyd answers the door in a jumper and sock feet, looking every inch the ageing, lonely man he is.

“It’s Mikhail,” Q says by way of greeting, trying very hard to remain aloof. Natasha’s eyes are very wide.

A week later and Boothroyd is suddenly a foster father with two children on his health insurance. MI6 doesn’t bat an eyelash.

Q, Toby, Mikhail – never says thank you.

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

 

"So," Q asks as he finishes explaining the program to Bond, eyes almost fever bright in his excitement. "Do you like her?"

"Her?" Bond's admittedly a little confused – he's no idiot, but computer lingo was never his strong point – and still trying to wrap his head round some of the more technical jargon Q had babbled about.

"I call her White Queen." Q's toothy smile sends a frisson of trepidation down Bond's spine, but the underlying analogy makes him huff in amusement. _Does that make us white knights?,_ he wants to ask. White for justice, for what Q sees as fair retribution. White as Q's skin had once been before it had been colored by months of running, of being out on the field, of no longer being confined to the depths of MI6.

"Should I be jealous?" Bond asks with a smirk, and Q laughs as they kiss. Their lovemaking is heated without violence; Bond has long since learned that he cannot break Q, and Q has learned to keep up with a man of Bond's physical standing. Bond hoists Q onto the desk, kissing him breathless the whole while, and Q's only distraction is to shove the laptop out of the way. They have their own apartment now – _condominium unit,_ here – a short lease, but it's their own place to stay. The humidity makes the slide of skin on skin slick, makes it almost uncomfortably warm to be pressed this close, but neither of them care. Bond pushes in as Q's legs close around his hips in a vice grip, as lithe fingers drag down his back. The laptop hums in the background, blinking code at them in the dying sunlight.

White Queen. Their key piece on the board.

 _Check_.

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

 

Alec, at least, is good on his word: things are quiet for the time being. Still, Q watches, paranoid, tracking MI6's movements as much as he can risk it. He knows Bond had lied to him that morning, but he'd held his silence and allowed old friends another secret between them. Bond has been no less affectionate or dedicated since, but Q knows how well the agent can hide his tells – and how to read them, regardless.

Something finally slips one afternoon, two weeks after Alec's sudden appearance and equally sudden departure. Q's programming White Queen, fixing a few glitches in the coding, and Bond's – well, he's not quite sure. Last he'd seen Bond, the man had been tapping around one of their tablets doing god-knows-what, but he'd lost track of him since. Q finally looks up from his coding when a steaming mug of tea is placed by his elbow and a hand curls over his shoulder.

"Anything I can do?" Bond asks casually.

"Er." Q looks around the desk, the few papers covered in numbers and sketches, the tablets open to more lines of code and programs. "I – uh."

"Never mind." Bond's lips twist up in a dry smile that's a little bit _too_ pleasant, and he withdraws his grip. Q immediately feels a little bereft. "I'll – I just thought I might head out a bit. Metro Manila doesn't even have CCTV in most places, so I should be safe."

Q doesn't want to be left alone in the condo, doesn't want Bond going too far that he can't keep a close eye on the man. They're still fugitives, despite the relative safety, and just because MI6 doesn't know they're here doesn't mean no one else does. But Bond's already heading into the bedroom to get dressed, and so Q lets the protest die on his tongue. He looks down at his fingers resting on the keyboard, and the masterstroke he has in the works.

Bond comes back, dressed down in a shirt and jeans.

"Stay safe," he murmurs into Q's hair, and then he's gone.

 

 

"Is he bored yet?"

Really, Bond had been expecting it. Alec knows he's started something, and he's going to see it through. He's just another mission, in the end (and never mind the personal stakes).

"No." Really, Manila has limited tourist attractions as a metro – he's sitting in a rooftop café at a mall, reading a book he'd purchased inside. Alec drops into the chair next to him, and Bond has to wonder what the locals make of them, two well-built and definitely foreign men, squeezed into a Starbucks booth. They're attracting a lot of attention just by breathing.

"Are you?" Alec empties two packets of sugar into his takeaway coffee, stirs them in, expectant.

"Are you waiting for me to be?" It's all Bond will concede at this point.

Alec pauses, coffee halfway to his lips, then sets the cup down with a sigh. Runs his hand through his hair. "Look, James—" He hesitates, biting his lip. "I'd like to think, after all our time together, that I know you. I'd have thought, after Vesper—"

Bond's eyes flash but Alec presses on, determined.

"—England's still waiting for you. Q's a lost cause, after all he's done to us, but you – you can still come back. 007's still open."

 

 

(The flash of pleasure is quickly buried but no less significant, not under the threat of impending obsoleteness.

_Bellamy's quartermaster now._

_007's still open._

Just who was expendable, now, hm?)

 

 

"Pawn to E4," Q says when Bond returns some hours later, having wasted away his day wandering around the mall aimlessly. He's bought a few things – some shirts better suited to the climate, a few books, a packet of local candy – and these he sets on the living room couch. Q looks up with a welcoming smile. "White Queen open."

"Classic starter." Bond wanders over and Q rises to pull him into a kiss. "Mmm, good mood, are we?"

"Among other moods, yes," Q replies, grinning, carding fingers through Bond's short brown hair. "How's Quezon City?"

"Impossibly boring." Bond winds his hands around Q's waist, spans large hands around narrow hips. "Also I feel a bit like a zoo attraction walking around."

"They have good beaches down south," Q muses as he leans into Bond's touch. "El Nido. Bohol. Or a lovely town situated around a volcano that's now mostly lake, just two hours drive off." He cocks his head, then wrinkles his nose. "Pity about the internet connection, though."

"You at an isolated beach with no network? God forbid." Bond presses his face into Q's neck, breathes him in. Shunts Alec and his words from his mind. Sways them a little, side to side, humming absently under his breath. He feels Q smile against his shoulder, and shifts so one hand is on Q's hip, the other holding their entwined ones aloft. For a while they half-waltz in the tiny room, not quite looking at each other, the sounds of city traffic outside.

"It's ready," Q murmurs eventually, expression hidden from view. "Are you?"

 

 

Later, Bond will question the significance of Q's greeting. He will turn it over in his head like the paranoid bastard he is, wonder if it meant anything, if Q was hinting at something or simply making a joke. Later, Bond will succumb to the clawing insecurities he has so long kept at bay, just for a while. Just a while.

But that is later. For now, Bond merely hums noncommittally and two-steps them around the couch, face pressed into Q's neck. Q is mercifully quiet, letting himself be pulled along, because he may be ruthless but this is Bond. Q has always given the man what he needs.

Even when things break, when they come back in pieces, he gives what Bond needs.

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

 

Q wakes Bond gently, in the middle of the night, a soft caress down his cheek and a gentle shake of the shoulder. Bond comes to with a grunt and a drawn fist – old habits – before relaxing and blinking owlishly at Q, confused. Q has a laptop with him; in the darkness, the glare from its screen makes him almost translucent.

"One more thing," he starts, and turns the laptop toward Bond.

"I need to tell you," Q says, and explains, voice level and words clipped. His knee is pressed to Bond's shin through the blanket; Bond thinks if their skin touches, he might ignite.

Bond clenches his teeth at one point, on the piece of equipment he'd fought tooth and nail not to have. He remembers how it doesn't work.

Q talks in quietly measured words until dawn.

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

 

Manila gets even wetter as September draws in. Q looks up flights but doesn't book them. Bond tries not to read the paper too often else he might punch something. It should be domestic but the fact is, Q's too wrapped up in code and Bond's getting cabin fever. Day trips to the Subic Freeport Exchange can only do so much.

Q caves and books them for Perth in three weeks.

"Australia has penguins?" is all Bond has to say on the matter.

 

 

Q goes back to his coding and Bond goes back to aimlessly wandering the city until the air pollution gets the better of him. When he's walking alone, Alec's words beat a tattoo into the back of his mind, dragging him in endless circles of questions. Finally, as dusk closes in, Bond caves.

The locals tell him the bars in Makati are the best for location and price range. He texts Q, checks his wallet, and goes.

They don't stock his favourite brand of scotch, but it's beside the point. The buzz is all he's chasing, anyway.

“There was a girl,” he tells Q some hours later, while he's sprawled out on the couch where Q had deposited him, after the man had come to collect him from the bar in his full drunken glory. The typing noises from the tiny kitchen don't stop, don't even waver, but Bond can still feel the weight of Q's attention like a drumbeat down his spine. It seeps through the alcohol haze like fog in the winter.

“She looked like you.” Bond can remember her well enough, for his state; dark brown curls, slender body, habit of worrying her teeth between her lip. _Mestiza,_ the locals had described her. She'd glanced at Bond more than enough times over the evening.

The typing finally slows, then stops. Q huffs a little sigh and Bond grins, feeling very... loose. The sound of the kettle being set on the electric stove drifts over.

“I changed your flight,” Q finally says, and through the filter of alcohol Bond doesn't grasp the sobriety of the man's voice right away. “You'll get to Heathrow about late afternoon.”

The kettle's whistled by the time Bond gets what the words mean.

 

 

In the morning Bond has a hangover and cotton mouth. Q isn't in bed, but there's a glass of water, a couple of aspirin, and Q's favourite sweater next to the pillow.

Forgiveness, apparently, smells like Earl Grey tea and butter popcorn.

 

 

Night time, again.

“Well it's not the worst plan in the world.”

A pause, and a withering look. “Is that all?”

“If we try this—"

“I know.” Lips pursed, almost white, and a softening expression. “I know.”

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –**

 

Q – Mikhail – isn't even officially employed by MI6 yet, but he hates it.

This is Boothroyd's kindness, he knows, but that just makes it worse. That he's given these petty little projects out of _pity,_ and some sort of misplaced do-gooder attitude, stings more than he lets show; he doesn't want to appear vulnerable or ungrateful, not when this is all the shelter Natasha has left. Word of his defection will no doubt have gotten out, and the underworld is even more unforgiving of betrayals than the British Secret Service. At least governments observe policies regarding extradition.

Still, Natasha's in a vetted school, under surveillance, and Q gets to work on little filing cases, some minor programming, a bit of tinkering here and there on a few of Boothroyd's pet projects. He's bored out of his mind for the most part, but he won't bite the hand that feeds – the things M had hinted at, the glimmers of _more_ and _promise,_ are enough to keep him in check, to cage the feverish recklessness of his genius mind. _Be good,_ they tell him, as he clenches his teeth. _Be good, jump hoops, and we'll give you a chance._

They give him a minder, too, a sort of glorified babysitter who obviously resents being leashed to Q as much as Q (Mikhail, Mikhail Boothroyd on his papers, though he still doesn't know why he insisted on keeping the name) resents being under watch. Trevelyan (a low-ranking field agent freshly hired off the SBS) grumbles as he ambles around Q-Branch, shuffling around the minions and tapping angrily at his cellphone, throwing acrimonious looks at anyone who so much as breathes in his direction.

It's a relief for both of them when MI6 decides to have mercy – or take pity on Q-Branch, Mikhail isn't sure which – and give Trevelyan a mission. Security still watches Mikhail like a hawk whenever he passes, but at least there's no one breathing down his neck. After a few weeks, he's almost forgiven the fact that he'd even been kept an eye on.

 

 

He's not sure what compels him, one night at Q-Branch, to tell Boothroyd about being interested in medicine, about university, but the old man's smile is so sudden and warm that Mikhail's taken aback. He's resigned to the notion of being a charity case and a tentative asset, but this – the exuberance of his foster father, the eagerness at which he goes on about possible programs and campuses and hospital contacts – this is not something Mikhail has ever known. He's used to no one but himself giving a damn about his welfare.

Boothroyd goes on about Oxford versus Cambridge, or if perhaps he'd be happier at Keele, and Mikhail almost smiles.

Perhaps this is what it's like to have a real family.

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –**

 

Three weeks (907200 blinks) into September, Bond looks at the gun Q's given him, cradling it carefully in his palms. He looks at his half-packed suitcase, his favourite leather jacket, his new favorite mug. He doesn't look at Q, though, which is fine, since Q isn't looking at him.

There's a long moment of quiet while Q fidgets with the hem of his TARDIS shirt, and Bond looks at the gun.

Finally, when Q might shatter from silence, Bond speaks.

“I trust you.”

The relief from Q is almost palpable. He exhales in a whoosh and drops to his knees in front of Bond, resting his forehead on Bond's shoulder. Bond reaches out, puts the gun to the side, wraps his arms around Q.

“You promised,” Q reminds him in a shaky breath, near branding the words into Bond's skin. He sounds like a child and Bond thinks, again, of how terribly young he'd found this man when they'd first met at the National Gallery. How terribly young he still finds, Q, sometimes ( _Q is still a child in Bond's eyes is Bond's world_ ).

“You promised.”

 

 

Alec isn't really expecting him. He may claim to know his oldest friend, but much has changed since the botched mission in New York, and really this feels like Vesper all over again. Still, he's hoping, loitering at the lounge in those awful metal chairs until the PA system announces the final call for boarding. NAIA isn't the worst, as far as airports go, but it's still far from comfortable. At least there's Starbucks.

Tall and blonde stands stark against a crowd of small, dark-skinned Filipinos and Alec breathes a sigh of relief.

"Don't look so pissy," Bond drawls, smirking as he sidles up to Alec. "I'm sure the ticket cost wouldn't have dented your salary much."

"Shut up," Alec shoots back, but he can't quite hide his grin. He shoulders his carry-on and nods towards the gates. "Shall we?"

Bond thinks of the last departure flight he'd had, how he'd watched London drown under Q's displeasure. He wonders what's left for him to return to. He wonders if Eve's gone back to the field.

Alec flirts lightly with the stewardess until the plane begins to taxi, and Bond could almost smile; some things will never change. They settle in for the long-haul flight, Alec taking out a cheap paperback and Bond leaning against the window to watch the city disappear behind him.

He fancies that he sees dark curls stark against light skin, down in the departure terminal, but he's likely just projecting.

Leaving Q behind, whether at their old flat or MI6, and now even here, has never been easy. Bond doesn't think it ever will be.

 

 

Heathrow Airport, and London, is much like how Bond remembers, and yet it isn't.

The damage Q had wrought from Hong Kong still lingers, in heightened security measures and check points and a subtle but persistent sense of paranoia. It's been almost three months (3326400 blinks), but if Bond closes his eyes he can still picture the news bits of a city reeling from what it termed a terrorist attack. He inhales and knows, in part at least, that he's home – this is familiar soil, familiar ground, familiar territory. Alec leads him to where he'd parked his car. They chuck their things into the boot, stride over to their respective car doors; their eyes meet over the roof.

Alec grins first, obviously happy to have his old friend back. It's only a second's hesitation before Bond returns the smile.

“We sold your flat,” Alec comments as he guns the engine, reversing and heading for the car park exit. “Again.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Bond replies wryly, and Alec laughs.

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

 

Back in Manila, Q looks up as the PA system announces that his gate is now ready for boarding. He purses his lips and glances back at the screen, at the last few strings of code he'd entered into White Queen. It felt – wrong, really, to have let Bond leave with nothing more than a gun and a tracker and a string of words, murmured in the half-light before dawn until Q was sure Bond memorized them, could recite them in his sleep. Not that it's a guarantee the man will use them, and more's the pity.

Q wonders if Bond realizes just what Q has given him. Perhaps he hasn't, but more likely he has and he's just not thinking about it, and so he'd been able to leave.

Q packs up the laptop and shoulders his bag. There will be time enough to worry about that later, time to deliberately _not_ think that he might be losing the last thing he has that he considers family, the last thing he holds dear and _loves_.

His belief in Bond is and always will be unshakeable: Bond will always come back.

Q, however, is another question entirely.

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

 

 

 

> _ White Queen Rogue Protocol _
> 
> _Command: transfer directive_
> 
> _Confirmation: required_
> 
> _Voice recognition patch: James Bond_
> 
> _System action: sysadmin override:control transfer to command-prime James Bond. All directive from Mikhail Asprey rendered terminated and non-recognized._ _Subject Mikhail Asprey status designation:deceased._

 

 

 

__

_**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --** _

_End Chapter Two_


	3. wolf and thunder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, I'd like to apologize for the delay in updating this story. Those of you who follow me on Tumblr know that my minor thesis for my undergraduate degree took up my writing time, and I've been struggling with some personal issues as of late. Please be assured that I have no intentions of abandoning this story, and am simply getting back into the rhythm of writing again. Hopefully you can forgive me for the lapse in updates.
> 
> That being said, I'd actually had most of the next (and supposedly last, barring the epilogue) chapter written out; it just lacked closure and an ending. After a comment made by a reader, I made the executive decision to cut the latest chapter into two, giving this story one more chapter than intended (again, barring the epilogue). This means that I can update it sooner, but the next chapter will be a while, as I'll be writing it almost in full. I'm hoping you'll understand.
> 
> Again, apologies for taking so long, and I hope you enjoy!

* * *

 

Bond wakes up in Alec's flat to the smell of burning eggs, a crick in his neck and the remains of a nightmare weighing on his skin. He can hear his old friend shuffling around the kitchen, can smell the coffee, but he doesn't sit up right away. It's partly out of habit and partly a heightened sense of paranoia that keeps him on the couch a few more moments, to take stock of his surroundings (exit points, potential weapons, hiding places) and make sense of what's brought him here. He's grown so used to waking up, if not to Q himself, then to the sounds of a keyboard and a kettle whistling, that the gurgle of the percolator is almost completely foreign.

“I have cereal,” Alec calls from the kitchen, and then there's a pointed pause. “At least, I think I do.”

Bond snorts and pushes himself up, cocking an eyebrow at his friend over the back of the couch. “If you do, it's probably grown sentient and started its own colony in your cupboards.”

Alec, in the midst of pouring himself a cup of coffee, side-eyes said cupboard as if contemplating its destruction, then grimaces sheepishly. “The café around the corner doesn't hate me quite yet?” he offers instead, holding out the coffee pot as a peace offering.

Bond chuckles, shakes his head, but the mirth doesn't quite meet his eyes. He stands up and stretches, while Alec putters around the flat looking for his mobile.

All is right, then. All is as it should be.

 

 

Q wakes up to a blistering Australian morning and realizes why fires can start so spontaneously here. He reaches out instinctively, searching for the other point of warmth on the bed, only to fall through empty air. His hand hits the mattress and he flinches, remembering then that Bond isn't here. Bond is half a world away, on soil that actually knows what rain is. He groans, falls back onto the sheets, and throws an arm over his eyes.

“Bugger,” he mutters, then forces himself up and off the bed. The studio flat he's renting is tiny, but it's enough for his tech and his tea and his tiny bed squished into a corner. His mobile sits atop the small folding table to the side. Since Bond left, it hasn't rung once.

Q flips open his laptop before he picks his way across to what passes as a kitchen to plug in the electric kettle and scrounge up a granola bar from his meagre supplies. The White Queen hums at him as she starts up, her windows and lines of code popping up from sleep, ready for his work to begin. He's on his own in a foreign country, with only a few pieces of tech and his brains to get him by.

All is right. All is as it should be.

 

 

Bond clocks into MI6 in the mornings; Q visits the myriad coffee shops. Bond spends his days re-training and Q programs to his heart's content. It is a mockery of their old lives, except now Bond's every move is hounded with suspect, and Q is far from the bowels of his former headquarters. Bond creeps along the shore, washed back, but Q is now in the deep.

Q watches him sometimes, despite the time difference, piggybacking the MI6 systems to access their security cameras and tapes. He watches Bond retake his physio, watches him spar with Alec and the other Double-Os, watches him sit through the mandatory psych evals over and over, until the system is satisfied he's still one of them. Even then, though, it’s not enough.

These are the only times Q smiles, thin and precise, a line drawn by a scalpel in skin. He bides his time and drinks his tea, letting their storm gather power. They'll take MI6 like a hurricane.

 

**_\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –_ **

 

“Gun.”

 _Caspen._ “Fire.”

“Code.”

 _White Queen._ “Data.”

“London.”

 _Havoc._ “Home.”

 

**_\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –_ **

 

Bond jerks awake in the dark of a morning, one hand reaching on instinct for the gun hidden under his pillow. The red numbers of his digital clock blink at him, blurry to his sleep-heavy eyes, and before he can think things through he's knocked the damn thing to the floor. Bond sits up, forcing his breathing back to normal, slowly unfurling his fingers from their grip on his gun one by one.

England is still reeling from the devastation of their attack – of Q's retribution – even now. Bond has witnessed MI6 trying to construct servers, protocols, and fail-safes that will be impervious to the next time – because they recognize, yes, that so long as Q is out there, there will be a next time. Bond knows that Mallory wants information, wants Bond to seal the deal on his coming back and turn over all he knows.

Bond has also been avoiding Mallory as if his life depends on it (and perhaps it does).

He rubs the last of sleep from his eyes and looks around his room. The techs at Q-Branch had vetted it themselves, giving him the latest security system. He doesn't doubt it's already been taken over.

“Happy birthday,” he says with a smile, to the general emptiness of his flat.

It's been five months since he'd left Q with one last kiss, back in Manila. 6,480,000 blinks.

 

**_\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –_ **

 

Mikhail ends up getting into Oxford, with glowing credentials and a falsified transcript courtesy of MI6. Boothroyd sends him off with a soft, affectionate smile and a ruffle of his hair. They're all in the kitchen that morning: Boothroyd getting his tea before heading off to work, Natasha waiting for the security car to take her to school, and Q trying to locate that last Nature Valley granola bar he'd stashed away. Boothroyd bends down to kiss Natasha on the head and she catches him in a hug.

Mikhail watches her hold onto the closest thing she's had to a father, and feels something lodge in his throat.

“Do me a favour and specialize in geriatrics,” Boothroyd quips, once he's prised himself from Natasha and shouldered his bag. He claps Mikhail on the shoulder, grinning roguishly, but the hand lingers and the smile softens, something unreadable in his eyes. Mikhail feels a little heat creep into his cheeks as he ducks his head, fiddles with the hem of his shirt. Then Boothroyd musses his hair and nods. Natasha throws herself at Mikhail, squeezes his waist, and scampers after their foster parent.

A few moments later, the front door clicks shut and Mikhail is alone. He looks around the room, at the traces of what traditionally constitutes _home,_ and half-smiles. For the first time, he doesn't quite miss the abandoned warehouse, and Andrew's laugh. It's been six months and he's still bored, but he's got things to look forward to now.

The granola bar is hidden behind his tea canister. Mikhail retrieves it and leaves the house humming the Beatles. He doesn't check if anyone's watching.

 

 

After a month Mikhail celebrates his seventeenth birthday. It's not much – just him and Natasha for the start, until Boothroyd surprises them both later. Natasha gives him a card and a cupcake of her own making, which Mikhail manfully swallows, much to her delight. Boothroyd, grinning, presents him with a white coat (a joke) and a modified Swiss Army Knife. Mikhail smiles and cradles it in his lap, not quite sure what to say.

It's very unlike his last birthday, most of which he'd spent high off his arse in Andrew's bedroom, before hitting the town with their little gang and making a complete tit of himself. His gifts had been bags of smack, a new bike, and four orgasms. He barely remembers anything of the two-day celebration. Natasha had been carefully kept out of sight.

Make no mistake; both then and now, Mikhail had a family.

 

 

Later, while Natasha's dozing on the couch under a fleece blanket, Boothroyd talks Mikhail through the various new functions of his knife, including a mild taser and a single-use tranquilliser dart. Mikhail's grin widens the more he unfolds it, and Boothroyd has to laugh.

“Kid after my own heart,” he says, shaking his head with a rueful smile and setting a hand on Mikhail's shoulder as he gets up to carry Natasha to bed. Mikhail watches him go then turns back to the knife.

Two months later, he brings it to Boothroyd, fixed up and tricked out even better. The old man takes one look at it, then at Mikhail, and laughs.

It takes a while before Mikhail realizes he's beaming back.

 

**_\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –_ **

_ White Queen Command Bank _

_Command: secure primary_

_Confirmation: not required_

_Voice recognition patch: James Bond; secondary sysadmin voice override Mikhail Asprey_

_System action: sysadmin:hostile takeover; complete data deletion_

__

**_\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –_ **

****

The full weight of 007 status comes slowly, MI6 still hesitant to trust a rogue agent despite taking him back into the fold. Bond's sent out to guard diplomats, survey potential outposts, do recon for low-priority missions. The new Q doesn't smile as he hands Bond their new brand of gun, a modified Glock that isn't quite as efficient as Q's old Walther. Apparently all the schematics for that had disappeared in Q's last attack on MI6. Bond doesn't pity them in the slightest.

MI6 is no doubt watching him closely, and thus Bond does not touch the stock of weaponry he and Q have built up, the tricked-out weapons left in storage. He plays his part almost a little too well; in MI6's eyes he is 007 again, sarcastic and stubborn and very, very efficient – the best at what he does. He comes back to debrief and drop off his equipment, Alec and Moneypenny the only truly friendly people to greet him.

He feels like a wolf amongst sheep, and revels in it. They've even handed him the woollen clothing, after all.

 

**_\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –_ **

 

“New York.”

 _Red lights._ “Leiter.”

“M.”

 _Dead._ “Prick.”

“Michael.”

 _Wrong._ “Angel.”

 

**_\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –_ **

 

The thing is, in this age of technological revolution, MI6 seems to have forgotten what agents really do. They shoot, yes, and blow things up, and kill people in the name of England. They bring down terrorist groups and weapons factories and chemical plants; they infiltrate and exfiltrate and retrieve. But secondary to being a weapon is the collection of information, the build-up of a repertoire of skills, knowledge, and networks that makes their job that much easier. Every Double-O is a walking bank of connections and information, ranging from who can smuggle weapons into Japan to where the best place for coffee in Moscow is.

MI6 looks at Bond and sees a weapon returned, one more thing they can wield for themselves. Bond lets them see what they want to see, and contents himself with taking.

In the safety of his flat, shielded from their prying eyes, that is when Bond can shed the wool and bare his knife smile, even if only one person sees. Across the world, Q drinks him in, fingers touching the screen that is no compensation for warm flesh and taut muscle. Bond watches the camera with steady eyes, and Q thinks, _tu me manques._

_You are missing from me._

 

 

“Did you love him?” Alec asks at one point, after he'd found Bond skulking around the building's roof with a bottle of M's scotch and a packet of Turkish cigarettes. It's early morning, the first of the day's commuters filling the road ~~;~~. Bond's leaving for his first mission out of the country in a few hours, and Alec's just come back from Santorini. Bond takes a swig of liquor and muses, wordlessly handing the bottle for Alec to drink.

“Not exactly a word we've the right to,” he replies eventually, a humourless smile tugging at one corner of his lips.

Alec considers him carefully, cradling the bottle against his chest. Bond keeps his eyes out on the view, watching London wake up. He tries not to imagine that which he now considers _home_ stirring, sleep-mussed and endearing, on the bed beside him. His answer is honest, if cryptic; _love_ is, indeed, not a word he has any right to use.

Q was, is, will be Bond's world. That's it; that's all he knows. But not having Q has made Bond realize why storms are named after people.

Perhaps Bond is another of Q’s collateral, in the end.

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –

 

Agent 007 is in Barcelona and is having the most astonishing luck, even for a low-priority mission like this one. Electronic locks open a hair's breadth before he touches them; security cameras are disabled or mysteriously turned away. He's running away from a handful of enemy agents now, crossing a plaza, ducking between people and stalls and landscaping. He darts around a statue and pauses to catch his breath.

He glimpses a shock of black hair over pale skin out of the corner of his eye, and then the space behind him explodes.

It's carefully and masterfully executed: the area to the front of the statue is hardly touched. Behind, when Bond can look, is a chaos of smoke and dust and debris; he doesn't doubt all four of his assailants are dead. The new Q is yelling in his ear, demanding a sitrep, but right now Bond's grinning too hard to care.

When he checks, though, the familiar head is gone. If it was even there at all.

 

 

Again and again it happens, whenever Bond is out on a mission. Sao Paolo, Reykjavik, Kandahar, Saint Petersburg. Q-Branch is apoplectic and Mallory (Bond will not, will _never_ refer to him as M, and even the word _sir_ is dragged from between his lips like his own teeth) – Mallory tries to bully him with missions of the lowest priority and constant trips to Medical. He knows there's no real threat to put to Bond's throat; they need to keep him to keep Q in line. Bond in turn needs shelter, somewhere to bide his time in safety.

Again and again, the board reaches a stalemate. But both players know they're holding back, testing waters. The pieces are poised for _real_ play.

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –

 

“England.”

 _Collateral._ “Country.”

“MI6.”

 _Target._ “Employer.”

“Q.”

 _Everything._ “Gone.”

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –

 

Bond gets his confirmation that Q is following him on the same mission he gets shot. He's back in Hong Kong, trying to track down an arms dealer in one of the lower-class neighbourhoods. The security camera swivels to fix on him, and through it, Bond can feel the weight of Q's gaze. It's been ten months but he hasn't forgotten, not the shade of Q's eyes or the posh clip of his words. He bleeds sluggishly onto the concrete, waiting for the evac team, watching the camera the whole while.

It doesn't disengage from him until he's carried out of the room.

 

 

Q is in Seoul; he doesn't dare come any nearer, not with the stakes rising and the need to play it close growing by the day. It's hateful. A mug shatters by the far wall at the same time Bond goes down on-camera; Q saves a visual of the shooters, intent on making their lives utter _hell_ before he blows them to Kingdom Come. But before that he turns his attention back to the footage, willing Bond to pull through – he specializes in _resurrection_ for fuck's sake, come _on._ Q makes to touch the screen, then slams the hand down onto the table hard enough to rattle.

“You _promised,_ ” he hisses vehemently at the screen. It's not in him to cry but something twists in his chest, tightening at the ugly thought of what might happen if this is finally _the_ mission. This isn't New York; there's no two week deadline and no miracle save. There's just an evac team that's taking _too bloody long,_ and Q in Korea with his heart in his throat.

“You promised,” he tells the screen again, the useless grainy 2D substitute for Bond that can't even hear him. He has just enough composure to wait until the evac team gets Bond out before he shuts down his systems and staggers back from the table. The White Queen is almost ready; Bond just needs to hold out a bit longer.

The gun on the couch nearby – the gun Q never lets out of his sight – glints in the late afternoon sun, glare momentarily blinding him.

Q just needs to hold out just a bit longer too.

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –

 

Mikhail isn't a genius for nothing: he's top of the class, and has managed to wrangle an internship of sorts at a nearby hospital. The old doctor is friend of Boothroyd's, and more than happy to accept the help of a young, enthusiastic student, especially one this smart. Mikhail runs his papers, looks up references, files his cases, andmanages his waiting room. Soon enough Dr Kennex is letting him tag along to visit a patient or two, review their diagnostics. Mikhail soaks it up, takes it in: this is his future. He actually has a shot at this life.

At nights when he's home, he helps Natasha with her homework, reads her stories before she sleeps. She asks after the hospital and he tells her what he can, tells her happy things: the mother he'd seen coming down the corridor with her newborn in her arms, the old couple who'd been told the man was going to live. When they are happening, he feels himself swell with hope; surely there is nothing more beautiful than life, all around. But all of it pales in the sight of his little sister's smile, her laughter, her absolute delight in her new world.

All of it pales, because what matters is Tasha is _safe_.

 

 

(One of the first things Andrew had taught him when he'd first come out of the foster system is that _life isn't fair._ He'd murmured it into the ear of the boy he'd come across wandering the underground tunnels; desperate, with a sleeping little girl in his arms. He'd murmured it as he'd held the boy who’d been shaking with relief at having been _found,_ at not being lost anymore. Mikhail – _Toby,_ then, that was the name he'd given since he’d still been capable of enough sense not to give his real identity – Toby had watched them take his sister to the nearest hospital while they brought him to a bed, gave him water, wrapped him up warm.

“I didn't have a choice,” he confesses shakily, pulling the blanket around him tighter. “I couldn't – I couldn't _stand—_ ”

“Hush.” Andrew presses a finger to his lips; his eyes tell Toby that he understands.

“She didn't deserve it,” Toby breathes out, voice cracking midway. He ducks his head, ashamed. Andrew gently puts a hand on his knee.

“Life isn't fair,” he says quietly, and Toby breaks and falls into his arms.)

 

 

When the call comes from the hospital, Boothroyd simply skips protocol and drops 008 mid-mission. He signs off abruptly, shoves the headset into R's hands, and is out of the branch doors before M can so much as blink. The trip there from MI6 should take about half an hour, with the evening traffic.

He makes it in half the time.

 

 

Mikhail is sitting in the waiting room when he gets there, the boy's head in his hands, a white coat draped across his shoulders. Boothroyd stutters to a stop when he sees Mikhail's hands are stained red.

Dr. Kennex looks up from the nearby nurse station when he notices the newcomer. Between Mikhail and Kennex's ashen expression, Boothroyd already knows.

“I'm sorry,” Kennex says quietly, coming forward.

“They told me it was a gunshot wound.” Boothroyd looks at the boy in the too-big coat and something wells in his throat.

Kennex purses his lips and glances over at Mikhail, too. The boy still hasn't looked up. Finally, Kennex sighs and shakes his head. “He did everything he could.”

 

 

“It wasn't _fair,_ ” Mikhail spits out abruptly, on the drive home.His hands are balled into fists on his lap; his body is trembling. Boothroyd can take apart any gun and put it back together. He can hack any country's government. He's constructed sixteen different kinds of explosives by hand. He doesn't know what to do for the boy in his shotgun seat.

“That was supposed to be _me,_ ” Mikhail adds, and his voice cracks on the last word. He hunches forward, shoulders shaking, hands coming up to clutch at his arms. Boothroyd looks at him once, then snaps his gaze back to the road, grip knuckle-white on the steering wheel.

“It’s not fair.” Mikhail says again, plaintive and broken.

The house that night is very quiet.

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –

 

Q finishes the White Queen while Bond is en-route to South Africa. He enters the last strings of code and then his fingers still, like a pianist’s after the sonata is through. Q looks at the screen, at his _magnum opus,_ and at the flight tracker in the corner that announces Bond's connecting flight taking off from Egypt. He slumps, hands falling from the keyboard to hang at his sides and head lolling back as he closes his eyes.

It's done.

Q exhales shakily, hands coming up to scrub at his cheeks. He forces himself to stand and get a glass of water. Normally he'd prefer tea, but the African heat is making even his thin linen shirt stick uncomfortably to his back, and the cool liquid provides some relief.

Bond's flight will land in three hours. Q has until then to set everything up so that MI6 will believe the mission objective has been achieved.

He sets down his glass and stretches luxuriously, padding over to the bathroom in his hotel room. Might as well make himself presentable first.

 

 

Bond arrives at the hotel and checks in, and that is the last truth MI6 will get from him. He takes a room key he has no intention of ever using, then takes the elevator to a different floor.

Warm eyes and a wide smile greet him scant seconds after he's knocked.

“Eleven bloody months,” he growls as he stumbles in, slamming the door behind him. Q laughs and lets himself be shoved against the wall, revelling in the feel of Bond as one solid line against him, too warm and right where he wants the man. Their first kiss is mostly teeth and very rough, and Q is gasping by the end of it.

“13910--” Bond cuts Q off with another kiss, hands sliding down Q's sides over to the backs of his thighs. He knows how long it’s been. He’s counted it for himself. Q takes the hint and allows himself to be lifted, pinned, taken, because even now, even now he gives Bond what the man needs.

In each other's arms, for now, they are no longer broken, and so Q gives Bond what he needs.

 

 

They get two weeks together, milked for all they are worth. The only time they are apart is when Q taps into MI6, makes sure they still think Bond has tossed his comm and is working the mission alone.

Neither of them mentions it, but each night is spent like it's the last time they will be together like this, as Q and as James Bond. Likely it is.

All storms peter out in the end.

 

 

Q watches Bond pack for his flight back to England and feels a faint sense of de ja vu. They've been here before, almost a year ago – Manila and a tiny apartment. This time, however, they’re both standing at the door of the hotel room. Bond looks at Q as if searching for something, and Q smiles (and this time it’s real).

“You promised,” he reminds Bond gently, and Bond nods.

One last kiss, and then Bond is out the door. Q sinks to the hardwood floor to take a few minutes to just sit there and breathe. Across the room, on his laptop screen, Bond’s tracker follows his progress out the hotel, to the airport, and later on the flight back home.

Just a little bit longer.

 

**_\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –_ **

 

Afterwards, Tanner will berate himself for not suspecting anything sooner. Perhaps the earliest warning would have been Bond's lack of protest at being shipped off to Medical after his return from Johannesburg; he'd been debriefed then had gone down himself, cradling a sprained wrist to his chest. Mallory had shaken his head and muttered something about _finally getting over his pigheadedness,_ and Tanner had shrugged and gone to fetch the relevant post-mission forms.

MI6 is growing complacent. Bond has played his part too well: no one is watching him anymore.

When the red light of the security camera in his recovery room begins to blink, once every two seconds, Bond strips the bandage off the faked injury and grins.

_When lightning strikes, start counting until you hear the thunder. The shorter the time, the closer the storm._

Bond doesn't intend to leave MI6 counting for long.

 

 

The first target is Medical. There are a few seconds of a staticky, high-pitched hum, and then the lights go out. Bond watches the red dot and counts – one, three, six – and at ten the emergency lights kick in, the room faintly green from the bulb above the door. Bond detaches all the wires and sensors from his body, kicks aside the dead machines, and slips out the door before the doctors come to check on him.

He's two floors down before anyone realizes Agent 007 is missing. All traces of him have been wiped from the system.

The manhunt is poised to begin when the metaphorical waves come crashing down.

 

 

R&D is the next to go. Bond can feel the rumbles under his feet as he sprints down corridors, the shocks of the carefully controlled explosions running up the walls. He ignores the lifts, bolting down the emergency stairwell instead, trusting every door to open at his touch. With the barest concern spared for the structural integrity of the building – even localized detonations can deal significant damage – he reaches the lower levels.

A grin and a wink at the nearest security camera, and the scanner of the door flashes green. Bond counts, three blinks and six seconds, and then enters.

_Aprés moi, le deluge._

 

 

Accounting. Foreign Relations. Help Center. Administration. One by one the departments lose power, their systems shutting down. The shooting ranges are locked down completely, leaving six agents trapped inside.

The storm clouds are darkening MI6. Bond’s footsteps ring like thunderclaps through empty corridors.

_Aprés nous, le deluge._

 

 

Q-Branch is in chaos:

All techs available, and then some, are scrambling to get a hold of whatever laptop, monitor, or keyboard they can manage, trying to override whatever it is that's got in their system. The new Q – Bellamy, Matt Bellamy – stands at the head, typing furiously, turning every so often to snap at one of his scurrying minions. Tanner seems to be the only one in some semblance of control; he's commanding staff members back and forth, collecting updates along the way. Mallory stands in front of the screens and seethes. Alec is shouting at him over the din, asking him something, but Bond doesn't hear. All Bond can see are the words that write, delete, and rewrite themselves over all the screens. Over and over again, type and backspace, type and backspace: one message just for Bond.

 

**w h i t e   q u e e n   r o g u e   p r o t o c o l**

**c o n f i r m ? __**

 

 

**_\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –_ **

 

_The touch of a hand precedes a shake of his shoulder, and Bond jerks awake, fist drawn even as his mind struggles to catch up. Q looks at him impassively, half-seated on the bed, knee against Bond's shin._

_“_ _One more thing,” he says, turning the laptop to Bond. The ex-agent sits up, rendered completely alert by the tone of Q's voice._

 _“_ _I need to tell you,” Q says, and pauses. His lips purse as he looks away, dark curls falling to cover his eyes. Bond wants to reach up, wants to brush them away, wants to bring Q close and cast aside the laptop and never leave this bed. But Q inhales sharply and looks up, and Bond can do nothing but trust him._

_Looking back, Bond remembers most of it in snippets, snatches of words in the level tone of Q's voice. Rogue protocol. Remote activation. Not returning. Designation: deceased._

_“_ _When this is executed.” Q says it so calmly, like he isn't serving his own sentence to himself. Bond grits his teeth down at the word, on the back molar wherein lies the one weapon at his disposal that he's sworn he'll never, ever use. “There is a command you need to deliver. I need to know you can do it.”_

 

**_\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –_ **

 

The tableau stands like this: Mallory glares murder at Bond. Alec stands between them, stance at defence ready. Tanner grips Mallory's arm while behind him. Q-Branch scrambles to wrest power back to their hands. Eve is in Bond's peripheral vision, one hand halfway to her gun.

Before all this, he wouldn't have thought Mallory capable of such fury. But this M and _his_ M have a shared decision now, and he understands: he's been nothing but disposable to them both. Even here, even in giving him 007 again, they are still using him to get to the primary. But Bond knows now that there's nothing for MI6 to take anymore.

Bond looks back at the screens and knows what Q is telling him: even boy Quartermasters can die.

 

 

“Bond?” Tanner raises his eyebrows, expression carefully neutral. Bond smiles, his knife smile; he's a weapon again in their hands, after all. It's what they've made him.

“White Queen, Rogue Protocol confirm.”

The text deletes itself, gets replaced by a new set of words. This time a tinny female tone, flat and computerized, accompanies them: Q has given White Queen a voice.

“ _Voice recognition patch: James Bond. Action authorized. Command?_ ”

“White Queen, transfer directive.” Bond's looking at the screen resolutely; a glance anywhere else might shatter his countenance. He doesn't even dare look at Alec, who's turned by now, gun lowered slightly and expression equal parts confused and disbelieving.

“ _Command activated: sysadmin override. Control transfer to command-prime James Bond. Confirm?_ ”

Bond closes his eyes and remembers: Q in the hazy dark before dawn, talking. Feeling about six seconds away from being set ablaze and razed to the ground. He closes his eyes and thinks that what might be the last thing he hears isn't even his lover's voice.

“White Queen, confirm.”

 

 

The tableau shifts: everyone turns to Bond. There is aggression, suspicion, an arsenal of weapons poised to strike. Bond might laugh at what little chance they have of destroying him.

It's already done, after all.

 

 

“ _Sysadmin confirm recognized. Control transferred to James Bond. Command?_ ”

Eve steps forward; without taking his eyes off Bond, Alec switches gun hands and levels the barrel right at her chest. She stops, hands held aloft at her sides in a universal gesture of _unarmed, safe._ 006 is still between Bond and Mallory; the rest of Q-Branch is frozen, eyes turned on their little group, by now recognizing that Bond has control over whatever's overridden their systems.

“James?” Alec's voice is quiet, measured, with the smallest inflection of concern. It should affect Bond, really, how faithful his old friend is, how determined he is to believe the best of a man he's served with for most of his life. It should, but it doesn't, because this is the man who tried to turn Bond against Q.

Q is and always will be still a child in Bond's eyes, is Bond's world.

Bond opens his eyes. “White Queen.”

“ _Command?_ ”

“James.” Alec catches his gaze. Bond counts the seconds in blinks, until he can almost see the red dot winking at him. The only way to tell time, for the longest time.

“White Queen, secure primary.”

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –**

 

Wave and undertow: Bond crashes in, knocks MI6 over. From the deep, Q pulls them down to drowning.

 

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –**

 

Three red blinks worth of stunned silence.

Bond smiles his knife smile as White Queen wreaks her havoc.

The screens of Q-Branch flash three words for all of five seconds before the entire MI6 goes dark, and Bond makes his daring escape. And after him, after his command, comes the deluge.

_Commence Data Deletion_

**\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –**

Both during and in hindsight, the decision is frighteningly easy to make. Bond stands at the sill of a large, broken picture window, poised to fall. Alec is ten feet from him with the barrel of a gun aimed at Bond's heart. Even without Bellamy's voice in Alec's ear (his, only his, if he dared to broadcast it over the more public channels Bond might do worse than already done) telling him _terminate rogue agent 007,_ Alec would make the same choice.

Three shots echo through the room, and James Bond falls.


End file.
